Aversive racism and community-instigated policing: The spatial politics of Nextdoor

I bring an understanding of the concept and practice of “aversive racism” to scholarly thinking about community formation. I argue that the exclusionary contours of community are in part a product of racialized in- and outgrouping from which people’s capacities for place-making are judged and localized policing is instigated. In bringing these concepts, formations, and practices together, this paper contributes to how urbanists might continue to think about the role of race in displacement, particularly as it plays out in the context of neighborhood change and gentrification more broadly. In the penultimate section I provide a discussion of the popular Nextdoor app as a means of illustrating a contemporary example of community-instigated policing and platform for what Dána-Ain Davis calls “muted racism.”

Why someone did not stop them? Aversive racism and the responsibility of bystanders

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine whether the impact of persistent racial bias, discrimination and racial violence is facilitated by otherwise well-intentioned individuals who fail to act or intercede. Utilizing the aversive racism framework, the need to move beyond awareness raising to facilitate behavioral changes is discussed. Examining the unique lens provided by the aversive racism framework and existing research, the bystander effect provides important insights on recent acts of racial violence such as the murder of Mr. George Floyd. Some promise is shown by the work on effective bystander behavior training and highlights the need for shared responsibility in preventing the outcomes of racial violence and discrimination to create meaningful and long-lasting social change.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses literature based on the aversive racism framework together with the literature on the bystander effect to understand the factors, conditions and consequences for lack of intervention when the victim is African American. This paper also provides evidence and theory-based recommendations for strategies to change passive bystanders into active allies.FindingsThe use of the aversive racism framework provides a powerful lens to help explain the inconsistencies in the bystander effect based on the race of the victim. The implications for intervention models point to the need for behavioral and competency-based approaches that have been shown to provide meaningful change.Practical implicationsSeveral different approaches to address incidents of racial aggression and violence have been developed in the past. However, given the principles of aversive racism, a unique approach that considers the inconsistencies between self-perceptions and actions is needed. This sets a new agenda for future research and meaningful behavioral intervention programs that seek to equip bystanders to intercede in the future.Social implicationsThe need to address and provide effective strategies to reduce the incidence of racial aggression and violence have wide-ranging benefits for individuals, communities and society.Originality/valueBy connecting the aversive racism framework to the bystander effect, the need for different models for developing responsive and active bystanders can be more effectively outlined.

Anti-Asian Racism in the Shadow of COVID-19 in the USA: Reported Incidents, Psychological Implications, and Coping Resources

Racism, which has been a deeply rooted feature of so many human societies across the world for centuries, has become rampant in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the past racism was thought to be as somehow “natural” or “biological.” Later on, sociologists recognized “race” as a socially and culturally constructed ideology, which exists in a society at both the individual and institutional levels. Further down the timeline, psychologists viewed racism as an individual or a collective psychological defensive mechanism generated by feelings of fear, insecurity, and anxiety in the face of imminent or presumed internal or external threat. No matter how it is described, racism has become rampant in the shadow of COVID-19, manifested in the incidents of racial slurs and verbal abuse, online bullying, physical attacks, vandalism, and others. It took the forms of white supremacy, xenophobia, Sinophobia, and institutional and aversive racism. It was institutionalized, politicized, and religionized. Given this increasing occurrence of racism triggered by COVID-19, this paper tried to trace the historical roots of racism, followed by the analysis of the specific incidents of anti-Asian racism and discrimination related to COVID-19 in the United States. This paper also sketched the psychological implications of racism and some coping mechanisms for the victims.

Aversive Racism: Foundations, Impact, and Future Directions

The concept of aversive racism has had a significant impact on theory, research, and practice devoted to better understanding bias, discrimination, and persistent disparities based on social identity group such as race, gender, social class, and so on. Originally developed to better explain subtle forms of bias toward racial and minoritized groups, this concept has been extended to understand the impact of disparities in a range of diverse settings, such as intergroup relations, health outcomes, fairness in employment setting, intergroup conflict, educational outcomes, racial bias in policing, experiences of stress and mental health issues, and persistent economic disparities. A core facet of the aversive framework paradigm is that because of human biases that are deeply rooted within a historical context and reinforced by ongoing societal ideologies, unintentional and subtle forms of discrimination emerge and persist. Given that these subtle forms of bias and discrimination exist within otherwise well-intentioned individuals, strategies to eliminate them require understanding the complexity of the aversive racism phenomenon in order to develop effective social interventions. This article reviews the foundation, research, and impact of this important body of work. In addition, the concept of aversive racism is discussed in connection to emerging research on microaggressions and unconscious (implicit) bias in order to create a more integrated framework that can shape future research and applications. Lastly, practical implications for organizations and future directions are explored, such as using social identity as a theoretical lens, including global perspectives on intergroup bias and leveraging emerging work on intersectionality, as useful perspectives to extend the aversive racism framework. Setting a future agenda for research and practice related to aversive racism is key to greater understanding of how to reduce intergroup bias and discrimination through interventions that cut across traditional academic and discipline boundaries as one approach to create meaningful and long-lasting social impact.

Causes of Microaggressions

This chapter analyzes the reasons why people commit microaggressions and how they are maintained. Microaggressions are conceptualized as learned behaviors, taught through observational learning and other social mechanisms from an early age. The impact of implicit bias is that Whites are implicitly taught they are a superior race, even though explicitly they may be instructed otherwise. As a result, their actions or inactions continue to promote racism in subtle, microaggressive ways. Aversive racism differs from blatant, old-fashioned racism, and it characterizes the racial attitudes of most well-educated and progressive White Americans. Aversive racists outwardly endorse fair and just treatment of all groups yet harbor feelings of discomfort toward people of color that may be unconscious. Microaggressions can also occur in the form of avoidance and inaction. Because biased socialization practices and interracial interactions put people at risk of committing microaggressions, some individuals find themselves avoiding people of color altogether and thus having little interaction with them. Microaggressions persist because the underlying cause of these behaviors (racism) reinforces social inequalities and hierarchies that are desirable to the in-group. Finally, people of color can and do commit microaggressions against each other; however, this occurs under an umbrella of White racial supremacy.

Customer Ethnic Bias in Service Encounters

As ethnic diversity continues to rise, customer bias in interethnic service encounters becomes an increasingly problematic issue for the parties involved, the service firms, and society at large. Against this background, the aim of our research is to examine ethnically biased customer responses, their key psychological mechanisms, and the effectiveness of enacted service scripts to shape interethnic service encounters. Building on the aversive racism framework and homophily theory, we propose a baseline effect of majority customers’ ethnic bias toward minority employees in the form of less positive behaviors in interethnic service encounters. In an initial laboratory study, we use experimental video simulations of frontline service encounters and confirm the robustness of this effect across two replications. In a subsequent field experiment, we test an extended framework of customer responses to interethnic service encounters, finding that customers’ experience of rapport and identification with the firm represent two serial mediators that facilitate the effects of interethnic service encounters on customer loyalty intentions. Together, these contributions enrich our understanding of how psychological mechanisms facilitate the incidence of ethnically biased customer behavior and also provide insights into viable ways to improve such encounters.